What kind of European are you?

What kind of European are you? The UK think tank Chatham House released a study mapping the attitudes of EU citizens. It placed them into six broad categories. It comes as no surprise that the biggest single group, about 36 percent of Europeans, are characterised as “hesitant”.

The hesitant “tend to be apathetic about politics, are concerned about immigration and tend to prioritise national sovereignty over deeper EU integration,” Chatham House writes. If that sounds like somebody you know, it’s probably because it is like somebody you know. Not only do members of the hesitant “tribe”, as Chatham House calls them, sound like the kind of people who tend to decide elections everywhere — in this case, the future direction of the European project — but in this survey the hesitant category are “more likely to live in Central and Eastern Europe”.

On any other political idea, the hesitant category are equal parts risk and opportunity. They present a riddle as while they are open to persuasion, they tend not to pay much serious attention to larger political issues.